D&D 5E A Compilation of all the Race Changes in Monsters of the Multiverse

Over on Reddit, user KingJackel went through the video leak which came out a few days ago and manually compiled a list of all the changes to races in the book. The changes are quite extensive, with only the fairy and harengon remaining unchanged. The book contains 33 races in total, compiled and updated from previous Dungeons & Dragons books.

D&D 5E - List of All 33 Races in Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains 33 races compiled from previous Dungeons & Dragons books. Aarackocra Assimar Bugbear Centaur Changeling Deep Gnome Duergar Eladrin Fairy Firbolg Genasi, Air Genasi, Earth Genasi, Fire Gennasi, Water Githyanki Githzerai Goblin Goliath...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Full List of Monsters in Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains revamped stat blocks for 260 monsters previously published in previous Dungeons & Dragons 5E books. The list was compiled by YouTuber Bob Worldbuilder based on some blurry screenshots originally shared by Nerd Immersion (see the video...

www.enworld.org

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I know you think you're making a persuasive argument, but you're really just proving my point over and over lol.

We're talking a tiny gain, next to potentially gigantic ones, and that was already possible, you just lost the ASI - and if you happened to have a class where both the ASI and the features matched up, you were more powerful. Now it's more even, because when there's a double-mismatch, or a partial match, you're no longer penalized as harshly, so the gap between the "worst race" for a class, and the "best race" is objectively, unarguably, significantly smaller. You can't even deny it.

What gigantic ones? What are you even talking about? You're the one who brought the balance argument in this and it is not making much sense nor it is really relevant.

Also, the reality is, from people actually using this, that most people are actually picking races they like, rather than just the best features. I've seen it in action. Before, the ASI was considered so important by many players, that it dominated race decisions for people who min-maxed even slightly.

Perhaps. So? It wouldn't have been an issue in the first place had they not been min-maxers.

It's absolutely both. Pretending it's one or the other entirely would be laughable. The niche protection requires balance. Thinking it doesn't is also laughable, and clearly demonstrated to be absolutely false by 3.XE, which failed to balance classes, whilst trying to do niche protection, and thus completely failed at niche protection.

If you have classes, they should be balanced, but classes are not required for balance in the first place, so that cannot be the reason for their existence!

This is a weird fantasy that has nothing to do with what we're discussing. It's also obviously false, because if you allowed those two, you'd allow other classes, and imbalance would be back. But there's no "swapping" happening here. You just keep saying there is because you don't seem to actually understand how races work now. I mean, maybe you do, but your language choices and comparisons suggest otherwise.

Swapping of ASIs is now happening. It don't before. This dilutes the thematic strengths of race splats, like swapping class features would dilute the thematic strength of class splats. Traits, ASIs, features, spells what a have you are all just rule elements and they together build the mechanical identity of the splat, define how it is different from other splats.

I literally explained why, in some detail, and you don't seem to be referencing that, so the only bizarre thing here is that. If you disagreed it would be one thing but you seem to have just missed it.

You explained that the difference is too small to represent anything. Presumably by same logic we should get rid of +1 magic weapons, as such difference is too small to represent magicalness? Also, that one point difference in modifier seem to be huge deal to some people in character creation, like you yourself alluded earlier in that same post. So I don't understand how it can same time be meaningless and hugely important.

Then D&D has been absurd since 2E, because it's been this way since then (and only not earlier because that's the first time D&D had "dozens" of races). Because this has been the case since 2E. You're looking for some other RPG, some kind of simulationist one. Rolemaster maybe? 5E has never been, and never will be simulationist, nor extremely concerned with verisimilitude.

Different species have had different bonuses in their abilities in D&D for a long time. Also, I don't need it to be "extremely concerned with verisimilitude," I'm perfectly fine with "mildly concerned with verisimilitude."

This is kind of funny, but again you don't seem to have actually looked at what I've said, /shrug I guess. "You do you" and all that. But if you want to discuss things, you need to like, actually respond to the other person, rather than ignoring what they're saying.

I am not ignoring what you're saying at all. The problem here is that you seem to be unable to consistently follow your own logic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@EzekielRaiden I really have no energy to a full quoted reply. Sorry. It might be easier if you tried to make your posts somewhat more concise, I feel your verbosity might actually obfuscate the point you're trying to make.

I still don't understand why you keep bringing up variability and averages. No one is denying that individuals vary and are not averages. We have way to represent that even with ASIs, point buys/roll.

Secondly, I don't understand why you think it matters what things are actually chosen by the character in fiction and what are only chosen by the player. That doesn't seem relevant.

Thirdly, of course in archetypal examples we must compare them to what a character of not that archetype attempting similar task could achieve. That really is what determines whether the archetype has niche protection on its area of expertise ort not.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So what's stopping that?

If it is a thing everyone can do, then it is not a way of doing associated with particular species. Like if everyone could get a breath weapon, then that really wouldn't be a dragonborn thing, even if they could take it too, would it?

As I keep saying, floating ASIs are for PCs only. As the DM, you can give every single other halfling and goliath whatever stats you want. What this means is that, if you're the DM, every single halfling in the world--except the PC--will always nimbly use their size and agility for advantage, and if you're a player, then your halfling will nimbly use their size and agility for advantage. And, if you're the DM, then every single goliath in the world--except the PC--will always overpower enemies with their strength and bulk, as will your goliath PC.

This to me is really unconvincing. And If you feel that the rules for PCs don't need to reflect the reality of their species in the setting, why on earth would this logic only apply to ability scores? Why can't my halfling have breath weapon and my orc brave trait? You still could have all the NPC halflings not have breath weapon and all NPC orcs not have brave. So if PCs are not bound by their species why we have dedicated race splats at all ? I don't get it.

As it is, a mere +2 in a stat isn't enough to enforce powerful goliaths and nimble halflings. It doesn't actually mean anything, really, because D&D doesn't have the right sort of rules for different types of combat. A halfling with Dex 20 and a rapier has the exact same attack and damage modifiers as a goliath with Str 20 and a longsword. Other than how the player narrates their actions, there is literally no difference between the two, because of the rules.

Sure. You chose the one situation where the dex and strength builds are closest to each other, but different weapons still result different imagery and their different ability scores affect different things in other areas. The goliath will be better grappler, the halfling way stealthier. The halfling will use shortbow as their ranged weapon, the goliath a handaxe. These characters will play differently overall, even in combat.

Level Up, with their fighting maneuvers, does have these sort of rules, and if you really wanted you could make a rule saying that certain races get a +1 or even +2 bonus to their maneuver save DC with certain traditions. There's 10 traditions, which means that if you really wanted to, you could give every race/heritage a "preferred tradition" (with humans and maybe half-humans, presumably, being able to choose their tradition). Personally, though, I'd view that as a cultural thing rather than a racial thing.

Sure, you certainly could add rules to differentiate things further. And that would probably be a good thing.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Good lord, you wander off for a couple days and the thread explodes. I suppose I should be used to it by now....

All I can say now with this rework is:

Bugbear Assassins.

I'm already planning a Bugbear bounty hunter. Not sure if it'll be a Rogue or a Ranger yet.

Fair enough, but D&D needs to handle [both Conan and Elric.]

I think TTRPGs should handle both Conan and Elric. I'm not convinced that the same TTRPG needs to handle both Conan and Elric.

Like I don't expect to pick up a fantasy novel and have it be Swords & Sorcery, and Pulp Fantasy, and Heroic Fantasy, and Epic High Fantasy, and Historical Fantasy, etc. Fantasy has evolved and broadened a lot since 1974. Even since 2001.

I think the mechanics will always be designed towards a given subgenre, even for a game that supposed to be as broadly appealing as D&D is. The current edition is trying to be more focused on heroic fantasy. That means the characters are motivated by ideology or morality rather than by a desire for material gain. That's why they've progressively reduced how important magic items are over the course of the edition. I much prefer pulp fantasy where the players are seeking to find cool loot and adventures that don't involve saving the world all the time. But 5e is really not built around that. Neither was 4e. 3e was a bit better. It's not even about gritty realism vs rapid recovery. It's entirely different ways the game structures player rewards.

In the short term that's true. In the longer term, though moving away from short rests to PB calls into question whether the short rest design will be retained in DND2024. I don't think it's guaranteed either way by this change though. Using PB/day or similar simply makes it easier to measure and balance these abilities.

However, the short-rest/long rest issue is one of the major sticking points of 5E, and if they wanted to sever the Gordian knot on that, one method might be to simply eliminate short-rest as a general mechanic. There are various approaches you could then take. The obvious one is giving people the base number + 2x short rest's worth of abilities per day. Alternatively, you could give classes which currently tie into short rest their own reset mechanics, like maybe Monks meditate for 10 minutes up to 2/day to regen Ki, Battlemasters sit and plan tactics for 10 minutes up to 2/day or whatever to get their dice back and so on. That way you eliminate the need to take a 1hr break in the middle of a dungeon just because someone needs resources back, and you'd really reduce the issues with balancing shorter adventuring days.

I suspect they'll retain a 1hr "HP regain" short rest though - it's just that cutting everything except HP away from that would make things a lot easier to balance.

I think the goal is to completely decouple ability recovery from short rests. The idea of running 6-8 pretty easy encounters to try to nickel and dime your PCs into taking short rests isn't entirely bad, but it means that days where you only have 1 fight feel really unbalanced between classes. And I don't think you can reasonably set up a game to just never have single combat encounter days, so it ends up being a poor design. Sometimes you want super big combats. Sometimes the only combat is a random encounter. Sometimes the PCs roll really badly. The game's class balance can't break when that happens, but on a single encounter day a Fighter has the resources of 2 encounters, while a Wizard has the resources of 6-8. The design is too inflexible.

However, short rests just for recovery of HP are great, especially if you don't want gritty realism. I think short rests to spend HD are one of the better additions to the game. I just don't like how some classes need lots of short rests. And maybe not how you only recover half your HD each day. I think you can do a lot by changing the rest schedule, but I don't think you can easily change the rest schedule when ability recovery is so unequal.

There is a reason why Gygax said, way back in 1979 in the DMG, that D&D is not a simulation of realism, and anyone wanting that should play a different game.

Was it the dragons?

I still think this was a supply chain issue rather than some coordinated effort. All the initial print run ended up in the gift set, and it took a long time to get a second print run for standalone copies out.

I bet after a few drinks, nearly anyone at WotC would admit this was a worst case scenario for print run.

There is definitely a supply chain issue. Matt Colville has said on stream that MCDM's physical copies of Kingdoms & Warfare were still delayed due to supply chain problems, and they're like six months behind the PDF release at this point. The limiting factor has been finding a printer that has paper. Granted, MCDM is not WotC/Hasbro scale, but "I'd like to print my book but there is no paper" is kind of strange.

 

[Hussar]

Look the 3e race comparison picture I posted earlier. The dwarves are broad as a barn door.

The picture is ridiculous. 4 1/2 feet tall and 150 pounds does NOT look like that. That dwarf is closer to about 250 pounds to look like that. Here's someone who is 5 feet tall and 150 pounds. Do they look like a "barn door"?

That's a 5'2" man. At 150 pounds. Does he look even remotely like that dwarf picture? See, this is the problem in a nutshell. The whole "believable" aspect is grounded in imagery that is in no way even close to realistic. It's how we get 15 pound swords in the game. Someone thought that was what swords weighed after all. It was believable to them.

So, no, I largely reject any notion of "believablility" in these types of discussion because it's so grounded in a personal perceptions that are often not even close to realistic.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

My thesis is that D&D's appeal is in big part based on being able to play easily recognisable archetypes, and if people start to feel that the mechanics actually do not reflect the archetypes, it will lead to disengagement. At some point people might say "What you mean that my massive half-orc that looks like Hulk is no stronger than a halfling?" or "What you mean that my Legolas clone is no more dextrous than a dwarf?"

But, is that actually happening? If someone plays an elven archer character, is their character less dextrous, or even equally dextrous to the dwarf fighter? Or, because the dwarf fighter went for heavy armor (which fits with the archetype) does the dwarf fighter have a low Dex and a high Str while the elf archer has the reverse?

I think you've got it backwards. You're saying that the mechanics have to force archetypes and do so by enforcing specific archetypes on specific concepts with ASI's. My point is that the archetypes don't need the mechanics to police them. People will play to those archetypes BECAUSE they are archetypes. You don't have to smack them with a stick in order to get them to follow those archetypes.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Was it the dragons?

Probably hit points

 

[Hussar]

Play it however you want. But the increased likelihood of succeeding at knowledge checks or other checks of mental acuity simulate having a higher intelligence than someone with a lower one.

So, the stats actually have zero impact on how the character is to be played. But, they do impact the game. Almost as if they aren't actually simulating anything, but, rather are simply part of the game. I can play my high Int character as completely clueless and that's perfectly fine, or conversely play my 4 Int character as a genius, and that's fine too. It just means that over the course of a campaign, I might succeed or fail a handful of checks. Otherwise there will be zero difference between two characters with differing stats.

How many Int checks does a character make over the course of a campaign? A hundred? How many succeed? 75? So, the low Int character succeeds 65% of the time. The high Int character 85%. Do you really think that's going to make a difference? That in a year of play anyone is going to notice the difference? Never minding that Proficiency Bonus and class features will likely completely overshadow stats pretty quickly.

IOW, even at 1st level, my +1 to proficiency checks and your +5 isn't going to make enough of a difference to be noticeable, particularly in light of the fact that by high level, it's +4 vs +9. Whoopee. It just isn't going to make much difference.

 

[Mordhau]

The picture is ridiculous. 4 1/2 feet tall and 150 pounds does NOT look like that. That dwarf is closer to about 250 pounds to look like that. Here's someone who is 5 feet tall and 150 pounds. Do they look like a "barn door"?

View attachment 150164
That's a 5'2" man. At 150 pounds. Does he look even remotely like that dwarf picture? See, this is the problem in a nutshell. The whole "believable" aspect is grounded in imagery that is in no way even close to realistic. It's how we get 15 pound swords in the game. Someone thought that was what swords weighed after all. It was believable to them.

So, no, I largely reject any notion of "believablility" in these types of discussion because it's so grounded in a personal perceptions that are often not even close to realistic.

Hah.

As someone from a metric country, I've never noticed any of this as I always completely ignore D&D weight values anyway.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But, is that actually happening? If someone plays an elven archer character, is their character less dextrous, or even equally dextrous to the dwarf fighter? Or, because the dwarf fighter went for heavy armor (which fits with the archetype) does the dwarf fighter have a low Dex and a high Str while the elf archer has the reverse?

I think you've got it backwards. You're saying that the mechanics have to force archetypes and do so by enforcing specific archetypes on specific concepts with ASI's. My point is that the archetypes don't need the mechanics to police them. People will play to those archetypes BECAUSE they are archetypes. You don't have to smack them with a stick in order to get them to follow those archetypes.

Then get rid of classes.